Is PrEP Failing To Reach Those At The Highest Risk Of Contracting HIV?

The use of Truvada as PrEP—pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV—is going gangbusters.

By the end of 2015, likely well over 80,000 U.S. residents had filled at least one prescription for the daily tablet. And given the steadily increasing rate of new prescriptions registered each quarter, the population of HIV-negative people who have at least tried PrEP has probably swelled considerably by now. This is fantastic news for the effort to stem the tide of HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM), whom data suggest make up the vast majority of PrEP users. While it’s still too early to determine Truvada’s initial impact on infection trends—PrEP started gaining popularity only in late 2013—clinics with large populations of high-risk MSM on PrEP have reported very low HIV rates among them.

Indeed, this is fantastic news—for white MSM.